Tom gave a presentation on HathiTrust to the Library Roundtable and shared the PowerPoint slides with the LAUC-B Executive Committee. LAUC members who could not attend this presentation may contact Nick for a copy of the slides.

Tom mentioned the campus administration’s preparations for campus protests that are set to begin on November 9, 2011. California Hall forbids over-night encampments and the use of buildings after their normal closing times. The Council of Deans endorses Observers (through the Campus Life and Leadership program) who are responsible for providing neutral reports of what happens in this season of protests.

Tom discussed the policy on recalled books for faculty. If recalled books are not returned, faculty will be blocked from print borrowing privileges – but proxy/VPN access to electronic resources will not be affected.

Tom gave a presentation on HathiTrust. Tom noted that Berkeley is a leader in the number of unique items contributed to the HathiTrust. LIT discussed whether there is any pressure to withdraw print collections when digital copies are available.

In a discussion of e-books, some faculty noted a preference for e-books over print books because of the richer functionalities of electronic media.

In an upcoming LIT meeting, Molly Van Houweling from the Law School and David Hansen (the Digital Library Fellow at the Law School) will be presenting on open access initiatives at Berkeley. This discussion will include BRII (the Berkeley Research Impact Initiative, http://lib.berkeley.edu/brii/), a central campus fund to pay for Berkeley authors’ open access fees that is co-sponsored by the Vice Chancellor for Research and the University Librarian.

The LIT Chair, Margaretta Lovell, raised the question of the impact of reductions of Library staff and the Library operational budget on the retention of subject savvy librarians able to work with faculty to teach research techniques to undergraduate and graduate students.

D. LAUC Statewide Conference Call (N. Robinson)

There has not been a LAUC Statewide conference call since the last LAUC-B Executive Committee meeting.

III. Continuing Business

A. LAUC-B Fall Assembly Planning (N. Robinson)

The LAUC-B Fall Assembly is Tuesday, November 29, 2011, 8:30 – 10:00 am, at the Morrison Library. The speaker will be the Director of The Bancroft Library, Professor Elaine Tennant.

B. Statement on peer review standards in times of increased workload (N. Robinson)

Nick re-iterated the memo's purpose. It will be a reminder to CAPA and other review stakeholders of the flexibility permitted within the APM for review standards – particularly the importance of giving appropriate weight to growth in primary responsibilities relative to other professional review standards, such as impact from professional participation in the national arena. The memo will also remind LAUC librarians of the importance of describing their additional assignments and expanded primary responsibilities in the self-evaluation.

Nick will prepare a third draft of the memo incorporating the LAUC-B Executive Committee’s comments. This draft will be open for review by the LAUC-B membership at large.

The goal is to finalize and distribute this statement on peer review standards before the upcoming CAPA review term.

C. Fiat Flux conference report (I. Wang, M. Phillips)

I-Wei and Margaret reviewed the results of the 2011 LAUC-B Conference post-event evaluations. Sixty-three evaluation forms were received, and the average scores were generally high across the evaluation criteria (in the 3.4 range on a 4.0 scale).

I-Wei reported that after his conference talk on the UC Online Instruction Pilot Project, http://onlineeducation.universityofcalifornia.edu, Dean Christopher Edley, Jr. followed up with UC Vice Provost Daniel Greenstein on the interests and concerns with online education voiced by the librarians at the conference.

I-Wei and Margaret reviewed the suggestions by conference attendees for the next LAUC-B conference. Suggestions for topics included distance education, university-wide and inter-campus collaboration, and assessment (e.g., assessing the success of library projects in times of change).

Here is a quote to summarize: "Since the Librarian Series salary scale adjustment of 1999-2000, practices pertaining to Distinguished Status have been in question. Prior to 2000, all librarians seeking to advance from Librarian, Step IV to Librarian, Step V needed to earn distinction as a Distinguished Librarian in order to advance to this highest step in the series. At the time of the Salary Scale adjustment, Steps VI and VII were added to the series, and the placement or continued existence of a "distinguished step" was never clearly defined."

The Task Force outlined a range of options for the distinguished status (beginning on page 9):

This decision has not been implemented because the Council of University Librarians, the Distinguished Status Working Group charged by the Council of University Librarians, AFT, and the University have
not yet concluded their discussions of this issue.

For the foreseeable future, librarian review is still operating under Option 1 with distinguished status as a requirement for advancement from Librarian Step V to VI.

Discussions surrounding the distinguished library status are continuing at various levels of LAUC and library administration.

In 2007, the LAUC-B Diversity and Retention Task Force conducted a survey of the LAUC-B membership.

This survey captured information relating to (1) the retention of librarians at UC Berkeley, (2) the campus benefits, policies, professional development support activities, and campus and Bay Area features that create a work environment that supports the retention and recruitment of librarians; and (3) the needs for improving librarian retention on campus.

The LAUC-B Executive Committee discussed the usefulness of this survey and report – and noted the potential of conducting an updated version of this survey to foster longitudinal analysis of the trends in retention and recruitment of UC Berkeley librarians.

The LAUC-B Executive Committee is interested in conducting a new survey on retention, recruitment and workloadissues, and will explore this matter further.